So what games did you play as a kid?
Before we had anything else, we had Commodore 64. Most of the games were impossibly hard, but these are some I remember a little more fondly.
Skool DazeVery cool game! You attend school. You have to do some tasks while also making sure you get to classes and stay out of trouble so you dont get expelled.
But I played Trapdoor, based on a slightly obscure British kids show, even more. You play Berk who lives in the basement of a castle and has to make his master meals. Sometimes, that involves having to open the Trapdoor and let out the monsters that live down there.
I love this game's weird and creepy atmosphere. I still do!
Another relatively forgiving game was Popeye, an adventure game of sorts where you have to collect kisses from Olive Oil and avoid various hazards. Weird, but kinda cool.
What did you play? 🙂
Before I got into console gaming, I also cut my teeth on PC games. I got my first computer in December 1993, a Windows 3.1 machine. And the biggest game of that era of my childhood was probably Chip's Challenge.
Many a night sneaking out of my bedroom to the computer room to play it until I got tired or my parents noticed.
My childhood was in the era before video games. We played various board games and various sports. Video games started to emerge when I began my teenage years in the mid 70's. This one was the first I ever saw and played...
Pong - Video Game Console/TV Game Commercial 1976
Wow. Proper old-school there,
@Psy-Fi 🙂
Quote from: Mrs. Waffles on Dec 08, 2023, 12:33 AMBefore I got into console gaming, I also cut my teeth on PC games. I got my first computer in December 1993, a Windows 3.1 machine. And the biggest game of that era of my childhood was probably Chip's Challenge.
Many a night sneaking out of my bedroom to the computer room to play it until I got tired or my parents noticed.
Oh man 😅 I don't think I played that one, but it sure has the look of a dreary early computer game! But hey, aesthetics isn't everything 🙂
The Nintendo and Sega Mega drive were okay, but Amiga 500 was the bee's knees in the early 90s.
We played Monkey Island 1 and 2.. I think the second game had like 12 disks or so. The hours spent playing those two games are etched on my very being.
However! Two other favorites:
It Came from the Desert II - Antheads
I'd sometimes sleep over at my buddy's and he liked to sleep long. On mornings, I'd sneak into the computer room and timidly play this by myself as it had a fairly creepy atmosphere.
Basically you have to investigate a case of giant ants and not only that, but people are turning into ants. Antheads!!
Great game.
Moonstone Discounting the Monkey Islands, this is my favourite game for the Amiga 500 🙂 it's a sorta open world game where you play a knight visiting monster lairs and fighting monsters. There's also multiplayer and druids, dragons and gambling and stuff. So cool!
I was really into MS-DOS 5.0 games in my youth. The most memorable of these were WOLF 3D, Spear of Destiny, Pinball Dreams/Pinball Fantasies, Test Drive 2: The Dual, The Incredible Machine (a fun Rube Goldberg puzzler), Hocus Pocus, Cauldron 2: The Pumpkin Strikes Back (ported from the C64), Aldo's Adventure, Jazz Jackrabbit (a Sonic clone), Carmen Sandiego, Crystal Caves, and most importantly, the entire Commander Keen series.
Keen was easily my favorite arcade platformer on the PC. Still fun to revisit today!
(https://i.imgur.com/9pblsJQl.png)
Quote from: Guybrush on Dec 08, 2023, 05:27 PMWow. Proper old-school there, @Psy-Fi 🙂
Oh man 😅 I don't think I played that one, but it sure has the look of a dreary early computer game! But hey, aesthetics isn't everything 🙂
It was about as simple as it gets but surprisingly difficult to master even with the simplicity of it.
I thought it might've been the first video game released for home use but I found a commercial for another one which precedes it by four years...
Magnavox Odyssey Commercial (1972)
I didn't play a lot of games growing up but I do remember playing the hell out of a handheld racing game similar to this one. Later on I would fall in love with Tetris.
(https://imgur.com/BrsEEGG.jpg)
Tiger Electronic Handheld Pinball was my favorite.
(https://i.imgur.com/RV3CCGbl.jpg)
And The Internet Archive has a stockpile of a library of playable in-browser emulated LCD classics.
Check them out here: https://archive.org/details/handheldhistory (https://archive.org/details/handheldhistory)
Freddi Fish for 90's Windows computers is an early (if not
the earliest) gaming memory for me and a source of major nostalgia.
This is the one I remember, except in Norwegian:
Through adult eyes it's obvious they were going for a fun and colorful feel, but I remember thinking some of the screens were actually kinda creepy, or at least a little mysterious, what with the dark deep sea hues and all. Definitely sparked an affinity for point-and-click's that has more or less persisted until today, though :)
I though I'd mention a couple more interesting Amiga 500 games that we played.
Hunter is a game I've realized, in retrospect, was pretty darn unusual. It was an open world 3D game in which you could shoot, blow things up, ride various things like boats, bicycles, tanks or even a windsurfing board. It was like GTA, only much shittier of course, but pretty good for its time. We had fun with it.
And I doubt this next one is remembered too fondly by many, but we played a lot of James Pond II: Robocod. The theme is quite catchy!
@GD I think Freddi the Fish was by the team that produced Putt Putt Saves the Zoo. I had that as well.
Quote from: innerspaceboy on Dec 13, 2023, 12:30 AM@GD I think Freddi the Fish was by the team that produced Putt Putt Saves the Zoo. I had that as well.
Yeah, I think I've heard it mentioned alongside the Freddi' games a few times. Never came to my attention during my childhood, but then again the Putt Putt games might never have been imported here unlike FF. Certainly don't recall what Putt-putt was called over here if they did
I played the first Freddi Fish, I loved it as a kid. I still remember a lot of stuff about it, like the sea urchins you put in the bucket, and some of the minigames.
I also played Putt Putt Saves the Zoo and Putt Putt Goes to the Moon. I remember thinking it was so cool that you could change Putt Putt's color by giving him a paint job.
In elementary school my friends and I really liked the books Stellaluna, The Little House on the Prairie, and The Pony Pal Club, so at recess we would play, respectively, games we termed "Bats," "Pilgrims," and "Horses."
In middle school, when we began demonstrating more exclusive behaviors, we created games that were cliquish in their playability - notably, "Shoe Shoe," "Charlie's Angels," and "Murder."
"Murder" was also popular among my siblings and cousins, and often entailed being "on the run" from our ex-husbands.
A game I played by myself was called "Alien Abduction" in which I would gather my baby brother in my arms and pretend I was going to make a sacrificial offering to my Extraterrestrial Masters until my older sisters got too freaked out and ratted to Grandma.
OMFG this thread is so fun to go through.
My early pc gaming days were definitely the games that we played at school on those Mac computers that every school was being supplied at the time. So it was mostly games that were on floppy disk.
Keen the commander was definitely a favorite of mines.
Oregon Trail
Mathblaster I think was another one.
There was a Carmen Sandiego game.
Mavis Beacon typing game.
Treasure Mountain
I logged so many hours on Treasure Mountain. I couldn't even remember the name of the game though. I had to google search to find the name. All I remembered was that you couldn't see the character's face because between his high collared shirt and his hat cover his face that was it.
Number Cruncher was another one as well. I won't post a video of it since I already posted so many from the other ones.
Games for the Amiga 500/600/1200.
Another WorldLemmings
Quote from: Meatwad on Dec 28, 2023, 03:20 PMGames for the Amiga 500/600/1200.
Another World
Lemmings
Yup, remember both well 🙂 and also enjoyed the sequels, sorta, being Flashback and Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
Quote from: Guybrush on Dec 28, 2023, 07:38 PMYup, remember both well 🙂 and also enjoyed the sequels, sorta, being Flashback and Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
Most courtesy of X-Copy. :laughing:
Quote from: Guybrush on Dec 28, 2023, 07:38 PMYup, remember both well 🙂 and also enjoyed the sequels, sorta, being Flashback and Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
Have you noticed they've released an Amiga 500 Mini https://www.amazon.com.au/The-A500-Mini-Electronic-Games/dp/B09BW8N7JZ/ref=asc_df_B09BW8N7JZ/?tag=googleshopdsk-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=464128055449&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4609987307986142279&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9070529&hvtargid=pla-1409801168871&psc=1&mcid=79ca662b62c7365c92d1ba878751d218 ?
I was thinking about getting another A1200 or a A600 with a decent accelerator, but its probably a better idea just to get this Amiga 500 Mini or play the games on emulator since the Amigas seems to have a problem with capacitor longevity (like a lot of retro machines appear to do) and a lot of them need recapping. Plus, floppy disks aren't all that durable so a lot of them are defective now. Good times. And the games were a lot more fun than a lot of the ones I see now and I dont think Im being overly sentimental either. :)
Haven't had an Amiga since the early 2000's (my last was a A1200) but it was the computer I first used on the internet, mainly to talk to my best friend in the next town over. Even though Australia has some god awful connections speeds traditionally, with enough patience we could connect to the internet in the early/mid 90's. All of my friends had Amigas and we all thought they were here to stay and take market share away from IBM. Clearly Commodore dropped the ball with that one as the A1200 should have used a much more improved chipset but it was still a great computer. Still a very strong Amiga community out there with genuine enthusiasts but there is a lot of scamming going on too, with people selling knowingly faulty goods to other people. Makes me a bit reluctant to buy a 2nd hand Amiga due to this. British sellers seem to be the most reliable from what I've seen, but the freight cost to Australia is usually horrendous.
Can also remember another fun moment on the Amiga 1200 when I gained access to our high schools website on my mates Amiga once, since website security back then was pretty much non existent and only relied on whoever was the head of the computing department keeping a very mediocre password safe. One random kid who we didn't even hang out with got it and was too scared of logging in, in case he got into trouble. My friend and I on the other hand had no problem with this. We had complete control to edit the entire website :laughing:. Ended up renaming the school something juvenile and decided after a couple of hours that we'd had our fun and changed it back to what it should be and never logged into it again. Playing games was more fun that screwing with the high schools website so I doubt it ever got tampered with ever again. :laughing:
Quote from: Guybrush on Dec 28, 2023, 07:38 PMYup, remember both well 🙂 and also enjoyed the sequels, sorta, being Flashback and Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
On the subject of Another World, although Flashback looked and played very similarly to it, it actually wasn't a sequel (although the video game magazines at the time seem to imply this). Pretty sure they were developed by the same company but aren't supposed to be related.
Quote from: Meatwad on Dec 29, 2023, 11:28 AMOn the subject of Another World, although Flashback looked and played very similarly to it, it actually wasn't a sequel (although the video game magazines at the time seem to imply this). Pretty sure they were developed by the same company but aren't supposed to be related.
Yes, that's why I added the word "sorta" after sequels 🙂
I haven't seen the Amiga mini, but I'm not surprised it exists as it seems new versions of old computers and consoles have been making something of a splash lately. I got a new "commodore 64" for my last birthday. It has USB support and can load ROMs from a memory stick, so that's kinda nice. Only annoyance is the controller is cabled and seems to have the original cable length. We don't sit on the floor right in front of a small TV like we used to. We have big TVs and sit further away, so not sure why the manufacturers haven't caught on to that.
I've tried emulating AMIGA games, but the process seemed to me more fiddly and less reliable than most other systems. I assume Commodore may have changed the hardware / specs around a bit depending on years, region and so on? So maybe one of these new gadgets makes emulating and playing those games easier 🙂
Most of the great games are already on PC or other systems, but there was of course a time when the AMIGA versions were superior, even with the added disk swapping 🙂 the music / sound with the Amiga mods were at least pretty great.
I think Amigas were more popular in Europe than they were over here. I've never seen one or known anyone who had one. My dad had a few 80s home computers always lying around our house when I was a kid but we never booted them up. I know my dad used to use those to browse Usenet newsgroups back in the late 80s/early 90s, though I'm not sure if he used them for gaming.
I did play Lemmings in the 90s though, I believe this exact version for Windows '95 was the one I had.
The first games I remember playing was The Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, and Super Mario Bros.on the NES around 1993. Then a little later playing Chip's Challenge and Destruction Derby 2 on the PC. I didn't really become a huge gamer until the PS1/PS2 era. I remember spending hours playing the original Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider games then GTA 3 was released and I became obsessed with it. I don't game much anymore but I still have some older consoles collecting dust.
Number Munchers, baby. I played this on the DOS computer in the my kindergarten/first grade classroom (it was the same room). They had it on floppy disk, and this would have been circa 1994-95. Love that sh*t eating grin on the red monster.
Just was a great funtime GAME playing as a youngster...HOP SCOTCH..
You took a chalk and painted the pavement with squares and numbers to 10...You took a stone or similar and would takes turns to throw the stone to hit a square that you had to jump to..hop to one square and leap two feet onto the next square without stepping outside the Chalk lines..First to get up the top number 10 and back was the winner...
Parents would moan just a bit about the mess we made...that was my only sibling Jacqueline that I played with....one time we played lock out the house and she ended up in Hospital with 30 odd stitches in her arm....childhood back then was free but not without accidents.
^ I loved hopscotch too, and played it repeatedly with my brother and sister. It required a good balance of skills: careful throwing and careful jumping, and each turn became more challenging as different squares became off-limits: if you didn't "own" them yourself, you had to jump right over them.
Thanks for reminding me of a genuine pleasure that I haven't thought about in years.
For rainy days, Monopoly was the favourite I remember best. The official notes go up to $500 denomination, but we worked out some inflated version with $1 000 notes which made the game last for so long that even we finally got bored with it.
We played a lot of Monopoly (and also some hooscotch) and it was fun, but I've since realized that Monopoly's game design isn't particularly good. Especially, your loss of the game is likely to be a slow, downward spiral that takes a while where you lose all your buildings and land over time. Every round puts you at further disadvantage and you're unlikely to get out of it. This prolonged death isn't good game design or very child friendly 😄
Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 20, 2024, 06:31 AMWe played a lot of Monopoly (and also some hooscotch) and it was fun, but I've since realized that Monopoly's game design isn't particularly good. Especially, your loss of the game is likely to be a slow, downward spiral that takes a while where you lose all your buildings and land over time. Every round puts you at further disadvantage and you're unlikely to get out of it. This prolonged death isn't good game design or very child friendly 😄
Monopoly was originally a game to showcase that landlords have too much power. The bug is a feature.
Yes, with its focus on acquisition and money-making, Monopoly can be seen as sending a dubious message to kids - or perhaps it's just a harmless outlet to discharge your avaricious tendencies, to play at being a powerful businessman so that you can then go back, refreshed, to the typical state of childhood, with a few pennies of pocketmoney being your only financial assets. In that sense, it worked the same way as the ever popular cowboy movies which gave you the chance to live out the fantasy of being a gun-toting man of action for an hour or so.
I liked your description of losing at Monopoly, Guybrush ! It reminds me of some real-life years that I spent on a low income :laughing:
But in Monopoly, even losing can be fun: hoping the dice will let you survive another round, and in our own case, always having a benign banker who would periodically hand out $1 000 of bonus cash, just to keep the game going.
On the topic of badly designed games, does anyone know the Yu-Gi-Oh card game? I mention it because I noticed that it always caused heated arguments among my son's 12-year-old friends. The prob being that every card has its own complex rules and conditions of play, so the children descend into bitter arguments about the rules, instead of enjoying a game where the rules are simpler, and known to everyone before going in.
(https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/1/17/Play-Yu-Gi-Oh%21-Step-5-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Play-Yu-Gi-Oh%21-Step-5-Version-2.jpg.webp)
_________________________________
I think this Four-In-A-Row game was one of the best toys I bought for my son: very cheap, no fights, and it gets those young brains working:-
(https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/00/79/03/42/360_F_79034247_mRXn60kWOfOsGpmCNwKOSSvwDNYc0q5c.jpg)
@Lisnaholic I never really got into Yugioh, but I did play a lot of Magic the Gathering, another card game that has complex rules like that. Those kinds of games can be really fun and stimulating if everyone is clear on the rules, though yeah, it's hard when some cards interact with each other in convoluted ways. I played Magic regularly from ages 10 to 19, even co-hosted a group for it.
When I was a kid, my best friend's family had a decent computer with a color (!) monitor. We spent countless hours sitting at it playing King's Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. That last one, if you're unfamiliar, was an "adult" game with a lot of jokey sexual content.
@Janszoon I played Leisure Suit Larry and King's Quest, but not Police Quest. On the other hand, I did play Space Quest II which starts with our hero Roger Wilco sweeping in space and then he loses his broom.
(At about 1:40)
I played the Leisure Suit Larry games from 1 to 6, although I don't think I completed 2 and 3.
Quote from: Janszoon on Feb 20, 2024, 03:10 PMWhen I was a kid, my best friend's family had a decent computer with a color (!) monitor. We spent countless hours sitting at it playing King's Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. That last one, if you're unfamiliar, was an "adult" game with a lot of jokey sexual content.
My dad was a big Leisure Suit Larry fan back then, he had all of the games up to a certain point. He was and still is into very lowbrow sexual humor so I think those games were like a revelation for him, haha.
The one PC adventure game from that era that I do remember playing vividly was Maniac Mansion, which I recall being pretty cool, certainly for its time.
Quote from: Lexi Darling on Feb 20, 2024, 04:13 PMMy dad was a big Leisure Suit Larry fan back then, he had all of the games up to a certain point. He was and still is into very lowbrow sexual humor so I think those games were like a revelation for him, haha.
The one PC adventure game from that era that I do remember playing vividly was Maniac Mansion, which I recall being pretty cool, certainly for its time.
Yes, I liked Maniac Mansion too and its sequel Day of the Tentacle even more so 🙂 The first 10 minutes of that might be the funniest 10 minutes in gaming history.
We moved on of course as we grew up and moved on to dares....mmmmm
Just say that one dare went really went so wrong...My sister has a slightly different version in her memory but at the end of the day she ended up with 30 odd stitches in her arm after our game of lock you out.....hand through thick plated glass which I had slammed shut so she could not get in the house and without turning you you over...rush for a wrap which was a tea cloth as her arm was spurting blood, within minutes Mother arrived home from her part time job in the local laundry and got help to call for an amublance...no phone at home in those times......Mother had to give up her job after that as we really were too young to be left alone. I think we were about 9 years old.
^ Wow! That must've been really scary for everyone, Dianne - and it's a cautionary tale that it doesn't take more than a minute for unsupervised children to really hurt themselves. In many ways, making it to adulthood at all is our greatest achievement!
Quote from: Lexi Darling on Feb 20, 2024, 02:52 PM@Lisnaholic I never really got into Yugioh, but I did play a lot of Magic the Gathering, another card game that has complex rules like that. Those kinds of games can be really fun and stimulating if everyone is clear on the rules, though yeah, it's hard when some cards interact with each other in convoluted ways. I played Magic regularly from ages 10 to 19, even co-hosted a group for it.
^ Even I have noticed that Magic the Gathering has a good reputation among those card games: it seems to be about the best, and in fact my (now adult) son plays it occasionally with a group of friends. All very amicable - no tears or tantrums (afaik ;) )
I've also played Magic: The Gathering now and then going back to the 90s. It's a good game, although it must be getting crammed with various gameplay mechanics as they've made so much new stuff over the seasons.
Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 20, 2024, 06:31 AMWe played a lot of Monopoly (and also some hooscotch) and it was fun, but I've since realized that Monopoly's game design isn't particularly good. Especially, your loss of the game is likely to be a slow, downward spiral that takes a while where you lose all your buildings and land over time. Every round puts you at further disadvantage and you're unlikely to get out of it. This prolonged death isn't good game design or very child friendly 😄
I'm very competitive in almost all games I play. Not to the point that I'm a bad sport or anything, but when I play a game, I want to win (because I always playfully boast afterwards). My wife is not that competitive and she doesn't consider the strategy as much as I do (for example, making decisions based upon the knowledge of which properties people are most likely to land on - the orange properties being the most hit, because they're 7 - 9 spaces away from jail, which every player ends up in eventually), she's playing mostly for fun. But when I've played with her and her sister, they have both given Baltic Ave (or Mediterannean Ave) away to someone in a trade completing the brown set for them (before anyone else had complete sets). And they did it despite my protest - and of course, the person with that set won the game as both became slow-bleed wars of attrition. Fuckin' Monopoly. :laughing:
I think Monopoly is best played when you set the ground rules of having it only go for a certain amount of rounds instead of playing it out all the way until everyone is bankrupt.
Probably a good idea, DJ, but I don't think the children have been born yet capable of that kind of self-discipline! We used to play until the rain stopped or we got silly and started throwing the dice at each other.
Quote from: SGR on Apr 15, 2024, 09:02 PMI'm very competitive in almost all games I play. Not to the point that I'm a bad sport or anything, but when I play a game, I want to win (because I always playfully boast afterwards). My wife is not that competitive and she doesn't consider the strategy as much as I do (for example, making decisions based upon the knowledge of which properties people are most likely to land on - the orange properties being the most hit, because they're 7 - 9 spaces away from jail, which every player ends up in eventually), she's playing mostly for fun. But when I've played with her and her sister, they have both given Baltic Ave (or Mediterannean Ave) away to someone in a trade completing the brown set for them (before anyone else had complete sets). And they did it despite my protest - and of course, the person with that set won the game as both became slow-bleed wars of attrition. Fuckin' Monopoly. :laughing:
Hey! you were seriously into Monopoly, SGR, but were clearly not playing on the London-based board:-
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/4f/9b/064f9bee8ae03d0dd844298a80e1307f.jpg)
Despite your impressive statistical analysis, we always felt that owning Mayfair and Park Lane were the winning properties, as you could charge the highest rent.
(Even as a kid, I knew about half of those destinations irl, but not Jail though ;) )
______________________________
Here's a tip to give you a competitive edge in the game of Risk, SGR :-
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/819k2KPLaqL._AC_UF350,350_QL80_.jpg)
Get Australia if you can: it almost always wins!
Quote from: Lisnaholic on Apr 15, 2024, 11:51 PMProbably a good idea, DJ, but I don't think the children have been born yet capable of that kind of self-discipline! We used to play until the rain stopped or we got silly and started throwing the dice at each other.
Hey! you were seriously into Monopoly, SGR, but were clearly not playing on the London-based board:-
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/4f/9b/064f9bee8ae03d0dd844298a80e1307f.jpg)
Despite your impressive statistical analysis, we always felt that owning Mayfair and Park Lane were the winning properties, as you could charge the highest rent.
Wait you had a different name for Boardwalk and Park Place? Those two spots are always highly coveted for their highest rent prices.
I found a Monopoly board that had places from my city and I'm so mad that I didn't buy it when I saw it at Walmart because it is so hard to find a copy of it now. I don't even know the company that custom made the board and was allowed to sell their product inside of Walmart.
Also nowadays there is a kids version of Monopoly that includes a rounds limit I believe so it ends up ending before it comes to blows 😆.
Quote from: DJChameleon on Apr 16, 2024, 12:25 AMI found a Monopoly board that had places from my city and I'm so mad that I didn't buy it when I saw it at Walmart because it is so hard to find a copy of it now. I don't even know the company that custom made the board and was allowed to sell their product inside of Walmart.
^ I´m sorry you missed that opportunity, DJ: the game is so much nicer if you can visualize the places you are landing on.